A novel technique for folding logic arrays

The folding of logic arrays is a technique to reduce the area of the array by exploiting its sparsity. Since the problem is NP-complete, heuristic algorithms that yield a near optimal solution have to be employed. In this paper the array optimization problem has been studied and a method employing a combination of simulated annealing and heuristic algorithms has been developed to find a near optimal solution for both simple and multiple folding of logic arrays. The algorithms developed have been implemented in a computer program called GAMIN-SA. When compared to PLEASURE, GAMIN-SA was seen to perform as good or better with regard to quality of solution and, for the bigger PLAs (multiple folding), it was better in terms of run-time as well.<>